psaltseller

I started playing guitar in 1963. You'd think I'd have gotten a lot better by now. I was living in the SF Bay area at the time, and learned most of what I know from hanging around coffee houses and listening/watching people play, then going home and thoroughly irritating the neighbors trying to get something that sounded about the same.

When it looked like I'd make it out of high school, my father (who was known for his puckish sense of humor -- as in hockey -- as in right between the eyes -- or wherever) gave me an Italian six string zither-top banjo. You couldn't play rhythm chords on it, and it was strung like a guitar so you couldn't frail it. I finally figured out how to work with the thing a couple years back. Sort of.

1966 (I'll fast-forward in a minute), I went to my third (or maybe fourth) Berkeley Folk Festival. I got to play backup for a Rabbi named Carlebach during the festival and realized how music and people were supposed to connect.

From those days to these: 26 years in the US Air Force (part time gigs here and there plus running choirs at the chapels), A set of degrees, teaching jobs from Kindergarten to Graduate School, three marriages, three kids, two grandchildren, and a lot of stuff I'd rather not discuss. Winding through it all is the music, and the ideas about life I learned all those years ago.

I had a few years away from the music, but I'm back now, with the hands starting to remember where to go, and a few new instruments to learn. I spend a quarter of the year at home in Oregon, on a little acre of wooded ground near the edge of the wilderness. The rest of the year, I'm in Southern California, helping my mother.

That's undoubtedly more than you wanted to know, and when I have the time to write this shorter, I'll come back and edit it. Until then, cheers to all.